The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1887-10-01
THAT COWARD"
He Was Brave to Suffer. to Dare
and to Do.

On the river line of Missouri, In 1861,
lived two families, small farmers, and
both without paternal heads or guides.
Dugal Moore, with his aged mother,
constituted the one. Allan Dean, with
mother. and sister. held the other, and
neighboring homestead.
Both young men were not yet in their
majority when the stirring events of
secession racked the Union. They had
been close friends since boyhood, and
all the surrounding country well knew
that Dugal and pretty Jennie Dean,
Aliens young sister, were and had
been devoted lovers since they were old
enough to know the meaning of such a
word; likewise that the two farms were
TO be united. as well ~ the lovers, so
soon - ''things became more settled"
But ''things" became more and more
unsettled, and when the clash Of war
eventually caused all to realize that
strife was . fixed and inevitable fact,
then the trouble of the expectant pair
grew, to them, far darker than the
clouds that lowered over our land. For
Dugal had the fixedness Of his own
opinions, and from the first he had
been an out-spoken candidate of the
Union. while Allen. hot-headed, As
strongly espoused the cause of the
South.
When the calG.s the drums reused
men to arms, Allen was among the
first 10 enlist under the Confederate
flag. Everybody expected that Dugal
would be equally prompt to fight for the
Stars and Stripes. But Dugal made no
sign. He had carefully weighed his
duty to his country and to the old
mother who had long overtaxed her
strength to support him in his helpless
ness; il he left her she must starve; and
to all the entreaties, demands and
threats Of those whose principles he
supported. his answer was simply:
II can not leave my mother"
Nanny cali" they called him, and
many other hard names.
They promised to see that his mother
should want for nothing. but he, having
the long. clear head of his Scotch
ancestry. could easily see what such
promises were worth, when all about
him were poor as himself and when the
whole country was quickly becoming
depopulated Of every available man, on
one side or the other. So he stuck to
his resolution. and in little time was
really the only able-bodied young man
In his section.
And all secuted him and avoided him.
and with finger and tongue pointed him
out a. THAT Coward"
It was hard ON . young fellow OIL
twenty, who had before been 30 popular
for those feats of strength and agility
that are there 80 highly estimated, and |
who had been respected 20 greatly for |
his common sense that his elders often
sought and were guided by his advice.
And, worse than all, Jennie Dean cast |
him OF. She could and probably would |
have sided with him politically, but to |
have the lover in whom she had 40 |
gioried called ''that coward was far
too much for . girl Of that section to |
bear, and she held her head higher |
from him than all others.
Dugal stood this even without remon- |
STRANGE, though no one ever knew how |
deep the iron entered the soul. He |
worked like slave. and better. with
bis surplus and hands he was always |
ready to aid the many poor women who |
than afr,od bs1lxy z, ,-.S -,